LITMIR.BIZ

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swim and not sink. He has little time, for he has heard the scuffle down-stairs when the wife tried to force her way up, and perhaps he has already heard from his Lascar confederate that the police are hurrying up the street. There is not an instant to be lost. He rushes to some secret horde, where he has accumulated the fruits of his beggary, and he stuffs all the coins upon which he can lay his hands into the pockets to make sure of the coat’s sinking. He throws it out, and would have done the same with the other garments had not he heard the rush of steps below, and only just had time to close the window when the police appeared.”

      “It certainly sounds feasible.”

      “Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a better. Boone, as I have told you, was arrested and taken to the station, but it could not be shown that there had ever before been anything against him. He had for years been known as a professional beggar, but his life appeared to have been a very quiet and innocent one. There the matter stands at present, and the questions which have to be solved—what Neville St. Clair was doing in the opium den, what happened to him when there, where is he now, and what Hugh Boone had to do with his disappearance—are all as far from a solution as ever. I confess that I cannot recall any case within my experience which looked at the first glance so simple, and yet which presented such difficulties.”

      While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of events, we had been whirling through the outskirts of the great town until the last straggling houses had been left behind, and we rattled along with a country hedge upon either side of us. Just as he finished, however, we drove through two scattered villages, where a few lights still glimmered in the windows.

      “We are on the outskirts of Lee,” said my companion. “We have touched on three English counties in our short drive, starting in Middlesex, passing over an angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent. See that light among the trees? That is ‘The Cedars,’ and beside that lamp sits a woman whose anxious ears have already, I have little doubt, caught the clink of our horse’s feet.”

      “But why are you not conducting the case from Baker Street?” I asked.

      “Because there are many inquiries which must be made out here. Mrs. St. Clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and you may rest assured that she will have nothing but a welcome for my friend and colleague. I hate to meet her, Watson, when I have no news of her husband. Here we are. Whoa, there, whoa!”

      We had pulled up in front of a large villa which stood within its own grounds. A stable-boy had run out to the horse’s head, and, springing down, I followed Holmes up the small, winding gravel-drive which led to the house. As we approached, the door flew open, and a little blonde woman stood in the opening, clad in some sort of light mousseline de soie, with a touch of fluffy pink chiffon at her neck and wrists. She stood with her figure outlined against the flood of light, one hand upon the door, one half-raised in her eagerness, her body slightly bent, her head and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a standing question.

      “Well?” she cried, “well?” And then, seeing that there were two of us, she gave a cry of hope which sank into a groan as she saw that my companion shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

      “No good news?”

      “None.”

      “No bad?”

      “No.”

      “Thank God for that. But come in. You must be weary, for you have had a long day.”

      “This is my friend, Dr. Watson. He has been of most vital use to me in several of my cases, and a lucky chance has made it possible for me to bring him out and associate him with this investigation.”

      “I am delighted to see you,” said she, pressing my hand warmly. “You will, I am sure, forgive anything that may be wanting in our arrangements, when you consider the blow which has come so suddenly upon us.”

      “My dear madam,” said I, “I am an old campaigner, and if I were not, I can very well see that no apology is needed. If I can be of any assistance, either to you or to my friend here, I shall be indeed happy.”

      “Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said the lady, as we entered a well-lit dining-room, upon the table of which a cold supper had been laid out, “I should very much like to ask you one or two plain questions, to which I beg that you will give a plain answer.”

      “Certainly, madam.”

      “Do not trouble about my feelings. I am not hysterical, nor given to fainting. I simply wish to hear your real, real opinion.”

      “Upon what point?”

      “In your heart of hearts do you think that Neville is alive?”

      Sherlock Holmes seemed to be embarrassed by the question. “Frankly, now!” she repeated, standing upon the rug and looking keenly down at him as he leaned back in a basket-chair.

      “Frankly, then, madam, I do not.”

      “You think that he is dead?”

      “I do.”

      “Murdered?”

      “I don’t say that. Perhaps.”

      “And on what day did he meet his death?”

      “On Monday.”

      “Then perhaps, Mr. Holmes, you will be good enough to explain how it is that I have received a letter from him to-day.”

      Sherlock Holmes sprang out of his chair as if he had been galvanized.

      “What!” he roared.

      “Yes, to-day.” She stood smiling, holding up a little slip of paper in the air.

      “May I see it?”

      “Certainly.”

      He snatched it from her in his eagerness, and smoothing it out upon the table, he drew over the lamp, and examined it intently. I had left my chair, and was gazing at it over his shoulder. The envelope was a very coarse one, and was stamped with the Gravesend post-mark, and with the date of that very day, or rather of the day before, for it was considerably after midnight.

      “Coarse writing,” murmured Holmes. “Surely this is not your husband’s writing, madam.”

      “No, but the enclosure is.”

      “I perceive also that whoever addressed the envelope had to go and inquire as to the address.”

      “How can you tell that?”

      “The name, you see, is in perfectly black ink, which has dried itself. The rest is of the grayish color, which shows that blotting-paper has been used. If it had been written straight off, and then blotted, none would be of a deep black shade. This man has written the name, and there has then been a pause before he wrote the address, which can only mean that he was not familiar with it. It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles. Let us now see the letter. Ha! there has been an enclosure here!”

      “Yes, there was a ring. His signet-ring.”

      “And you are sure that this is your husband’s hand?”

      “One of his hands.”

      “One?”

      “His hand when he wrote hurriedly. It is very unlike his usual writing, and yet I know it well.”

      “‘Dearest do not be frightened. All will come well. There is a huge error which it may take some little time to rectify. Wait in patience.—Neville.’ Written in pencil upon the fly-leaf of a book, octavo size, no water-mark. Hum! Posted to-day in Gravesend by a man with a dirty thumb. Ha! And the flap has been gummed, if I am not very much in error, by a person who had been chewing tobacco. And you have no doubt that it is your husband’s hand, madam?”

      “None. Neville wrote those words.”

      “And they were posted to-day at Gravesend. Well, Mrs. St. Clair, the clouds lighten, though I should

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